I just noticed this for the first time yesterday when I was playing a game: for some reason, some of the unit cards have italicized titles, and others do not. I noticed this when looking at unique cards - particularly vehicles.

For example:

Italicized
Red Two
Home One
Devastator
Redemption

Not Italicized
Rogue Three
Renegade Squadron
Vader's TIE Advanced
"Backstabber"

Anyone have any idea why this exists? I thought it was a misprint based on core set vs expansion sets, but clearly some of the non-italicized cards are from core so I really have no idea.

Grammatically, the names of ships (naval and air) are italicized. I don't think there's any gameplay significance to it.

OK, so why are some of them italicized and others not? I also saw that Slave I in the new expansion is italicized.

Proper names of ships are italicized and only proper names of ships. "Darth Vader's TIE Advanced" is not italicized because it is not the name of the vessel. "Backstabber" is in quoatation marks because it is the nickname of the pilot and not the ship. "Slave I" is italicized because it is the name of that particular ship, not all Firespray vessels.

Rob,

What about Rogue Three vs Red Two? Red Two is italicized and Rogue Three is not.

Congratulations, you have found a minor formatting error - you have won the internet.

Technically, Red Two should not have been italicized because it is a call sign of the pilot, not a ship name. I believe they attempted to rectify that error by making sure Rogue Three was not italicized. Or they could have just missed it and accidentally been right. Who knows.

Good to know. Red Five is also italicized so maybe they just changed their mind about which ones should be italicized after core came out. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something here.

No, you are correct - these are names of pilots. That is why Rogue Leader and Rogue Two from the upcoming Battle of Hoth pack are also not italicized. The only violations of the rules are Red Two and Red Five. It seems as though someone was under the mistaken impression that the "Red" designations were for the craft and not the pilots. Whether or not they continue the italicizing of the members of Red Squadron rather than bring their formatting in line with the rest of the cards is something that we will all simply have to await with bated breathe. I anticipate many a sleepless night in the interim.

Sorry for being unclear. When I said, "Maybe they missed it and were accidentally right," I meant maybe they meant to italicize Rogue Three but it got through development without anyone noticing that it wasn't italicized and so they were accidentally correct in not italicizing Rogue Three. Unlikely.

I think what really happened was that the non-italics of pilot designations was pointed out to them after the core set was already at the printer but they were able to fix it for the first cycle of Force packs.

Hopefully future printings of the Core Set will correct the error, just like when important errata is issued to cards (e.g. the AGoT agenda, Heir to the Iron Throne here, whose text as of the most recent printing reads "House Targaryen Only").